By: Jeff Cowart, MAH | jcowart@barlowmccarthy.com

One of the associations representing marketers nationally offers storytelling skills development. The organization begins its course description with this definition: “Capture peoples’ imagination and interest by creating a narrative that appeals to the heart (inspiring vision), mind (credible evidence), and how-to (personal evidence). Example: Capture the essence of learning from data in revisualizing a product or service.”

What an unclear and fuzzy approach to a course on storytelling.

The language in this definition reduces storytelling to a utilitarian purpose of product and service sales. In doing so, it misses the essence of storytelling. But, this is not necessarily unexpected when business and industry stumble across new buzzwords like content marketing and brand narrative and seeks to convert them to spreadsheet outcomes.

Sometimes marketing succeeds in storytelling, but more often than not, it fails. This failure stems more from the reduction of storytelling to an executable tactic rather than being attributable to the roots of the story itself.

What we know from history and science is that compelling stories are essential to the entire human narrative and experience. Authentic stories work and connect to the universal human condition. Stories crafted with the primary purpose of selling products and services have trouble connecting because the artificial and forced nature of the concept tends to be inauthentic. Authenticity is essential.

I recently ran across a video clip of famed Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz telling an authentic story that connects to universal human experience. If interested, search online for it using “Holtz silver spoon speech.”

Successful stories have shared characteristics – beginnings, middles and ends; characters; plots; smart and natural use of words and language; rhythm and flow; and much more. Stories manipulated into marketing contexts are usually missing some variety of these essential elements.

The idea of content marketing is hot. In a book Ann Handley wrote about it she posed these questions: “If a visitor came to your website without its branding in place, would he or she recognize it as yours? If you stripped your branding from all your properties and lined up your words alongside a competitor’s, would you recognize yourself?”

She may as well have asked, “What is authentic in your storytelling?”

Authenticity is not a marketing tactic. Corporate storytelling succeeds by the same principles of storytelling, writing and craft as “The Old Man and the Sea.” Content marketing today needs to engage writers who know the craft, not marketing agencies who claim to be writers. Skilled writers think of the reader or receiver of the story first and they work and re-work diligently to make sure the needs of the reader are met. They also, like Hemingway, have editors who help review and shape the final piece. In an interview Handley noted, “Editors are not optional. Period.”

In that same interview, Handley was asked to give a single sentence about what writing means to her. She said: “Writing is an attempt to create meaning in a crazy world.” Storytelling is too. Marketing should be, too.

How well does your content marketing and corporate storytelling deliver? Try Handley’s experiment. Pull some random copy from your website, remove your branding, and ask yourself if it would work just as well for another competing brand. Search for those things that you can definitively say are uniquely authentic to your company.

If you are not satisfied with the results, consider hiring a writer and an editor to add true storytelling to your content marketing. Effective marketing sometimes achieves compelling storytelling. Compelling storytelling is always effective marketing.